Children Right in Cambodia

In partial fulfillment of Human Right and Global Justice Course

By : Ms. Som Socheat

Ms. Rim Sothy

Lecturer : Neng Vannak, MA

College of Social Science

University Of Cambodia

2008

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 Content
I. Introduction

a. Background………………………………………………………………Page3
b. Problem Formulation……………………………………………………...Page3
c. Objective and Advantage………………………………............................Page3

II. Understanding of Children Right

1. UN Convention of the Rights of the Child………………………………..Page3

a. Definition of a child……………………………………............................Page4
b. The four basic right of the child…………………………………………..Page4

2. Current Child Issues in Cambodia…………………………………................Page5

a. Domestic Violence against Children……………………………………...Page5
b. Child Participation in Development……………………………………....Page5
c. Child Abuse……………….……………………………………………...Page6
1-Sexual abuse……………………………………………………Page 6
2-Physical abuse……………………………………………….. Page 7
3-Emotional abuse………………………………………...............Page7
4-Neglect and negligent treatment………………………………..Page7
5-Commercial or other exploitation of the child…………………Page7
d. Commercial and other exploitation of child ……………………………… Page 8
e. Child Discrimination………………………………………………..…….. Page8

III Solution to the protection of the children ……………………………… Page 9

1- Family and Community………………………………………………Page 9
2- NGOs…………………………………………………………………Page9
3- Government intervention ………………………………………… Page 10

IV Conclusion and Recommendation………………………………….Page 10

REFERENCE……………………………………………………………Page11

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 I- Introduction

a- Background

Children issues in Cambodia are critical and have been catching the attention of the
public, many abuse were found and happening all over the country. In collaboration
with the government, many NGOs, INGOs and UN agencies are trying to work
together to tackle these issues.

Cambodia ratified the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1992 and has
set in place several laws relating the Convention of the Rights of the Child. However,
implementation these law and principle has been slow. The awareness of Child right
by parents, teachers, community leader, and policy maker ...ect as well as children
are still limited, children doesn’t realize their full potential of their right.

The limitations of knowledge on Child right are from lack of awareness of child right,
gender bias, social stigma, hierarchical society...etc. As a result, it would prevent
Cambodia Children from fully enjoying their rights and discourage them from making
one voice.

b- Problem Formulation

Base on the above mentioned background, the problems necessary to be studied

are:

1- What kind of issues confronted by children?

2- How these issues are tackled?

c- Objective and Advantages

The study of “Children right in Cambodia” has the following objective:

1- Understand the forms of child abuses.

2- Illustrate the issue that confronted by children

Beside that, the advantages of the study are:

1. To promote awareness among students on the child right and child protection
in order to improve their knowledge and bring this knowledge to educate their
friends and families in order to provide safe environment to the children.

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II Understanding of Children Right

1- UN Convention of the Rights of the Child

The Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted and opens for signature,
ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution 44/24 of 20 November
1989. It entered into force 20 September 1990, in accordance with article 49.

The main purpose of the Convention on the Rights of the Child is to ensure the
protection of children right and to promote their right.

Below are the summary of the articles in Convention on the Rights of the Child:
• None discrimination : All right apply to all children without exception. It is
the state obligation to protect children from any form of discrimination and to
take positive action to promote their right.
• Implementation of rights : The state must do all it can to implement the right
contained in the Convention.
• Protection from abuse and neglect: The state shall protect the child from
all forms of maltreatment by parents or other responsible for the care of the
child and establish appropriate social programs for the prevention of abuse
and the treatment of victims.
• Child labor : The child has the right to be protected from work that threaten
his or her health, education or development. The state shall set a minimum
ages from employment and regulate working condition.
• Sexual exploitation : The state shall protect children from exploitation and
abuse, including prostitution and involvement in pornography.

a- Definition of a child

According to the Convention on the Right of the Child, a definition of the child can
be define as below:

“A child mean every human being below the age of eighteen years unless under
the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier “.

49 article on the prevention of the child has been cover by each article

b-The four basic right of the child

The UN Convention on the Right of the Child covered 54 articles which mentioned
about the rights of the children. In order to make this law easily remember, four
basic right of the children right is categorized as following:

1- Right to survival, it covered the right to live and to receive the treatment of the
health care.

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 2- Right to protection is the right that included the prevention from all kind of
discrimination and negligent.
3- Right to development, it cover the kind of right to educate and the right to live
in appropriately on the child physiology and development of physical, mental,
emotional...ect.
4- Right to participate, it covered the right to access to information, the right to
express their own view and the right to participate in all kind of activities.

2- The Current Children Issues in Cambodia : Children in education,

children in labor market

A-Domestic Violence against Children

Domestic punishment is a vital and major concern; most of the children are suffer
from domestic violence. The violence can be identified in many different forms:

• violence from parents toward their children:

Most parents believe that beating children is the way of educates them to obey
and listen to what is telling, their mind set was apply from generation to
generation, moreover, the traditional attitude to educate the children that “the
cake is not bigger than the scale “ is still applicable in this culture, on the other
hand, it is acceptable by society that beating the normal cases. Without
considering of their act, beating may result in physical and emotional harm of
the children which effect to their mentality, health and the wellbeing of the
children. A study carried out by Women’s Right s in Cambodia stated that
children were always vulnerable to violence from their father and their mother
who at time need to express their anger caused by their husband. Another
study conducted by Save the Children Norway on the perspective of children
whether children must obey what elder tell and point out shown that out of 147
children, 91% of them agreed that children should follow the instruction from
the parents; good children will always listen to the parents’ advice.

• Corporal Punishment

It is referred to the violence made by teacher toward the children; this issue is
still applicable in some schools particularly in the remote area. However, the
government and the NGOs are trying their best to take this into account by
taking diplomacy action to those teachers who committed this kind of voilence.
A studied of Child welfare Group and TEARFUND, stop violence against us,
2005 illustrated that 50.5% of boys and 36.4% of Cambodia children age 12-
15 suffer from corporal punishment meted out by their teacher. The corporal
punishment and domestic violence is a major concern of children drop out of
school.

• Violence made by children themselves (their brother, sister or

their friend)

Besides being punished by their parents, adult and teacher, the children are
also punish by children them self, bullying is a common form of violence where

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 children may face with emotional and physical abuse that resulted from their
peer. A survey of Save the Children Norway in the sample size of 147 children
shown that 43% of the punishment is committed by their brother/sister.

B-Child Participation in Development

The child participation concept is not common in Cambodia. Children voice

has not been fully recognize and they are usually excluded from the decision
making. Families, community, and society as whole treat children as
beneficiaries rather than participation in development process. This reflects
the abuse of the children against the Convention of the Rights of the Child
which mentioned in article 12. The absence of child participation is driven by
the following factor:

• Limit knowledge about the child right

• Limit understanding and practice about the Convention of the Rights of the
Child
• Social factor, the older people don’t value the children opinion, children
have to follow their parents’ decision whether it benefits to them or not .

Marginalized children such as children with disabilities, abandoned children,

homeless, street children and ethic minority children are limited to social
participation.

C-Child Abuse

Child abuse mean sexual abuse or other physical or mental harm deliberately
cause to a child.

According to Convention of the Rights of the Child, all children have the right to
freedom from abuse and exploitation however, many children particularly the poor
children are at risk of abuse in some extend, mainly the abuse and exploitation
are committed by the adults, children, teachers and/or their parents...ect

1 Child Sexual Abuse

Child sexual abuse is refer to the evolvement of the child in sexual activity that he
or she doesn’t fully comprehended, is unable to give inform consent to, or which
the child is not developmentally prepared and can not give consent, or that violate
the law.

A sexual abuse is a dreadful and hidden issue. The cases of sexual abuse were
often not reported, it came to know when the children already become a victim.
The main cause for not reporting is because:

• Poor law enforcement meaning that the perpetrator are quite often
free from legal punishment
• Lack of trust on justice system.
• Threaten from perpetrator

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 • Social stigmatization, it is a big shame when some one is rape,
sometimes the victim and the family prefer to deal with perpetrators
for compensation than to disclose the case

The main cause of abuse is lack of any protection network, limited knowledge on
relevant laws and lack of law to protect children.

According to a newly release newspaper as of 1st June 2008, a report from LICADHO
shown that the sexual abuse is the most threaten cases for Cambodia children.
Among the report to LICAHO, 70% of the reports are the sexual abuse cases in
2007.

2-Physical abuse

Physical abuse refers to the infliction of physical harm on a child by a parent or

caregiver. It is results in actual or potential physical harm from an interaction or lack
of interaction, which is reasonably within the control of a parent or person in position
of responsibility, power, or trust.

Child abuse could include bruises, abrasions, cuts, burns, fractures, bites, or any of a
number of other injuries. Also, physical assault by a parent or caregiver that presents
a substantial risk of physical injury is considered abuse. Hitting a child with a hard
instrument or with closed fists, burning, scalding, poisoning, suffocating, drowning,
kicking, shaking, choking, and stabbing are amongst behaviors that are considered to
be abusive.
In Cambodia context, physical abuse is still practical and acceptable in the society
especially in the rural area, the traditional practice are still applicable that some
family bring up their children with violence to method such as hitting, insulting,
threatening to educate their children, family often practice their own habits of
punishment as a normal means of problem solving an correcting children’s behavior
patterns and it is acceptable by the society. In contrasts, there are also some family
that educate their children with none violence form when the children make the
mistake

3- Emotional abuse

Emotional abuse is the act toward the children that cause or have a high
probability of causing harm to the children’s health or physical, mental, spiritual,
moral or social development. Acts include restriction of movement, pattern of
belittling, denigration, and threatening, scaring, discriminating or other non
physical forms of hostile or rejecting treatment (WHO, 1999).

According to the child physiology, children develop in four different area:

1- Physical: it refer to child body, it include the child growing bigger and change in
the body
2- Cognitive: refer to what a person or child know and understand.
3- Emotional, refer to feeling rather than knowledge
4- Social/ moral: Social development is about knowing how to communicate and
act with other. Moral refer to knowing what is right and wrong.

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Any form of the physical and emotion abuse/violence will result to the effect the
growth of the child.

4-Neglect and negligent treatment

Neglect and negligent treatment is the inattention or omission on the part of the
caregiver to provide for the development of the child in all sphere: health,
education, emotional development, nutrition, shelter and safe living condition.
This includes the failure to properly supervise and protect children from harm as
much as feasible. The failure of providing inappropriate care such shelter, food,
clothing, education, supervision, medical care and other basic necessities
needed, in adequate care is an example of negligent.

The neglect is commonly happen by the lack of care from parents, guardians,
caregiver...ect. In the current situation of Cambodia context, many Cambodia
children are at risk of their physical and emotional development which resulted
from the neglect of their parents. The consequence of the negligent treatment
may also lead to the effect of the child development and well being of the child.

D-Commercial or other exploitation of the child

• Child Labor
Commercial or other exploitation of the child is referred to the used of the child in
work or other activities for the benefit of other. This includes, but is not limited to,
child labor and child prostitution. There activities are to the detriment of the child’s
physical or mental health, education, moral or social emotional development
(WHO 1999)

Many Cambodian children often work to support their family but working is effect
t. Children plays an important role of helping their parent to find the income for the
family and helping their family by ploughing, doing the harvest works, clearing
land, look after the animal, doing the harvest work...ect.

• Child Trafficking

The worse form of child labor is child trafficking for sexual exploitation. Cambodia
children is becoming a subject in commercial transaction moreover, Cambodia is
an origin of transit to Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan and other country. Children as
young as ten years old are trafficked into cities from rural area to become sex
workers or traffic to different destination. On the other hand, children also
responsible to pay the debt of their parents by domestic worker.

• Factor of Child Trafficking and Labor

The factors that contribute to child labor and child trafficking are:

1- Social acceptance that parents “own “children

2- Lack of knowledge about child rights ‘
3-Lack of birth certificate
4-Domestic violence
5-Living condition

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E-Child Discrimination

Cambodia society is a traditionally a gender bias society. Boys are having more
change than girl to get education and participate in any activities in society where girl
are often treated as inferior and are socialized to put themselves last. With resulted
that they are not offer the same opportunity, the boy are more powerful to take part of
the decision making. Moreover, Cambodia is also hierarchical society where people
in higher position seem to be the superior to other and often do not value other’s
opinions.

Discrimination and neglect in childhood can initiate a lifelong downward spiral of

deprivation and exclusion from the social mainstream.

III- Solution to the Protection of the children

Child protection is the business of every one and each of us. We protect the children
for all forms of harm to ensure that they are living the safe environment.

1-Family and Community:

1- Set up the child protection network in the community to ensure the children
are systematically protected in their community.
2- Parents to ensure that all children are registered their birth certificates.
3 Parents, caregivers and other guardians to take great care of the children and
stop the violence against them.
4- Support prevention programs : parents to fully participate in any discussion on
related issue of the children right & child protection.
5- Educate yourself and others: Help educate others in community about
Child Abuse and Neglect. Simple support for children and parents can be
the best way to prevent Child Abuse.
6- Teach children their rights: When children are taught they are special and
have the right to be safe, they are less likely to think abuse is their fault, and
more likely to report an offender.
7- Parents to examine their behavior: Abuse is not just physical. Both words and
actions could inflict deep, lasting mental wounds. Be a nurturing parent. Use
your actions to show children and other adults that conflicts can be settled
without hitting or yelling and that effective talking and listening can make a
difference.

2-NGOs

1- Building the capacity of teacher and the key person in the community by
providing them training on the related issue that they will apply child right
concept in their teaching process
2- Building the capacity of the local people by providing training on the children
right and the protection of children.
3- Raise public awareness with campaigns and educate the parents on the
consequence of domestic violence is an effective method reduce violence
against children.

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4- Promote the understanding of child right and raise awareness of dangerous
issue such child trafficking amount children and community.

3-Government Intervention
In an effort to protect children from abuse, sexual exploitation and violence, the Royal
Government of Cambodia took the following key action :

1- A Memorandum of understanding was singed between RGC and the

government of the Kingdom of Thai on Bilateral Cooperation for Eliminating
Trafficking in children, women and assisting victims of trafficking.

2- A memorandum of understanding on Cooperation against trafficking in

persons in the greater Mekong Sub region was signed with China, Lao,
Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, 2004
3- The law on Prevention of Domestic Violence and Protection of the Victims was
adopted in 2005.
4- The conventions on the worst forms of child labour was ratified in 2006
5- The Palermo Protocol to prevent, suppress and punish trafficking in person
especially women and children supplementing the UN convention against
Transnational Organized Crime was ratified in 2005.
6- Adoption of the minimum standard on care for children, 2006
7- National plan of action on trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation 2006-
2010
7- RGC established a National Task force on Orphans and Vulnerable Children
to strengthen the national multi sectural response to promote and to protect
the child right
8- In October 2004, national wide mobile civil register campaigned was establish
with the support form Plan International, Asian Development Bank and
UNICEF.

IV- CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

Through the above mentioned study, the conclusion can be drawn that child right is a
major concern in Cambodia and the world as whole, child trafficking, discrimination
abuses and exploitation are still the big issues that need to be addressed by the
government, parents, communities and caregivers…ect. The limit understanding and
promoting the child right, Convention the right of the Child, protection network and
law enforcement...etc bring Cambodia children becomes victims and putting more
risk to the children

On the other hand, Children participation in the social activities was forgotten which
deprive children from expressing their idea, needs and concerns and prevented them
from fully used of their rights. The absence of children’s participation in matters that
affect their lives may result in actions that do not reflect children’s best interest or
may even impact negatively on children.

In addition, children who are the most vulnerable of abuse are not are well protected,
parents and other guardian doesn’t fully understand their duty of care toward the

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children. Further more, children themselves don’t fully understand about the full
potential of their right.

Base on the study, the main recommendations can be formulate as follow:

• Royal Government of Cambodia, NGos and other stakeholder to

involve the children in the decision making and promote the children’s
participation in order to make them realized of their right and create the
opportunity for them to the meaningful child participation.
• Government to consider of putting basic protection tool for children into
school curriculum.
• Government to take strongly disciplinary action to the perpetrator who
committed the abuse.
• Reinforce the legal system to protect the children.
• Encourage the community to report the abuse case in order not to keep
the perpetrator free from law.
• Prevention of punishment of children requires participation from
relevant members of the community. It requires increasing the
understanding of parents, guardians, and other family member on the
consequences of punishment and to provide positive option for child
psychology and development.

REFERENCE

1- Save the children Norway, Children’s view on Domestic Violence

2- Legal aid of Cambodia (March 2000), Cambodia law and the convention of the
right of the Child
3- Child Right Foundation (December 2005), The Convention of the Right of the
Child
4- www.unicef.org/worldfitforchildren/files/Cambidia_WFFC5-report
5- http://www.safechild.org/childabuse2.htm
6- http://www.preventelderabuse.org/elderabuse/physical.html

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